Mohsen Makhmalbaf
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Mohsen Makhmalbaf (Persian:محسن مخملباف) (born May 29, 1957) is a film director and writer from Iran (Persia), whose films during the last ten years were presented in international film festivals more than 1,000 times. As of 2002 he had gained 26 international prizes. He belongs to the new wave movement of Iranian cinema.
He was born in a poor family in southern Tehran. He had to work from the time he was eight years old, and before he was 17 years old, he changed his work 13 times. Before the Islamic revolution in Iran, he was a political activist and because of that he was jailed for more than 4 years, and was let out of jail only after the revolution. After the revolution he abandoned politics, because he had believed that the chief problem in Iran was the cultural one. So he began writing and making films. Today he has also published 27 books, many of which have already been translated in more than ten languages. Some of his films have been shown in more than 40 countries.
During the last five years he has also taught cinema to his family members, who have already made 6 films. Marziyeh Meshkini, his wife, gained thirteen international prizes for her film called The Day I Became a Woman, and his daughter Samira received the jury's prize at the Cannes film festival in France, 2000. His younger daughter Hana Makhmalbaf has also made her first film Joy of Madness 2003. For his productive instructing method, Boston University gave him its Special Prize in the year 2000.
Makhmalbaf also founded a non-governmental organization for enabling Afghan children to go to school in Iran; by means of changes in Iranian laws due to his campaigns, he succeeded in sending tens of thousands of Afghan children to schools in Iran.
Today he lives with his family in Kabul, the capital city of Afghanistan. He is helping to build schools and hospitals there and has also helped an Afghan director in producing a movie. His daughter Samira has also directed a movie in Afghanistan called At Five in the Afternoon.
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Influence of Makhmalbaf on world cinema
Persian cinema in Afghanistan is slowly rising after a long period of silence. Before September 11th attacks, Mohsen Makhmalbaf attracted world attention to Afghanistan by his celebrated movie , Kandahar. Kandahar was an attempt to tell the world about a forgotten country. Later on, Yassamin Maleknasr, Abolfazl Jalili, Samira Makhmalbaf and Siddiq Barmak did significant contribution to Persian cinema in Afghanistan. Siddiq Barmak is also director of the Afghan Children Education Movement (ACEM), an association that promotes literacy, culture and the arts, founded by Mohsen Makhmalbaf. The school trains actors and directors for the emerging cinema of Afghanistan.
In Tajikistan, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, is playing the same role as he played in the reconstruction of the cinema of post-Taliban Afghanistan. 1st Didar Film Festival, the first Film festival in Tajikistan, was held in 2004.
His films (written and directed by him)
- Boycott (1985)
- The Street Vendor (1986)
- The Bicyclist (1987)
- The Marriage of the Blessed (1988)
- Time of Love (1990)
- The Nights of Zayande-rood (1990)
- Naser-ed-din Shah, a Film Actor (1991)
- Actor (1993)
- Hello Cinema (1994)
- Gabbeh* (1995)
- Bread and Flower-pot (retitled Moment of Innocence for anglophone audiences) (1995)
- The Silence (1997)
- Test of Democracy (1999), with Farrokh-yar
- Kandahar (2001), brought him the Federico Fellini Prize From Unesco in Paris in 2001
- Monday Market, (2004)
- Colder Than Fire, (2005)
- Sex & Philosophy, (2005)
His banned films in Iran
- time of Love (1990), since 1990
- The Nights of Zayande-rood (1990), since 1990
- Bread and Flower-pot (1995), from 1995 until 1997
- The Silence (1997), from 1997 until 2000
- Naser-ed-din Shah, a Film Actor (1991), from 1992 until 1993
Films, in which he appeared (playing himself)
- The Marriage of the Blessed (1988), made by himself
- Close-up (1988), made by Abbas Kiarostami
- Hello Cinema (1994), made by himself
- Bread and Flower-pot (1995), made by himself
- The Test of Democracy (1999), made by him and Farrokh-yar
Sources
This article first appeared in the Irana Esperantisto (Iranian Esperantist): Vidi kaj ne Vidi (To See and not to See), by Wikipedia editor A.R. Mamduhi (Mamdoohi), No. 3, Year 2, Spring 2003, 32 pp., pp. 3-5. Its sources are:
- Persian book: Didan va Nadidan (To See and not to See), Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Tehran: Ney Publishing, 2002, 408 p.
- Makhmalbaf Film House